“Faith Cadena...” One of the lockers snapped open. Her utilitarian mining tech uniform was waiting for her.
Faith got dressed. Before she closed the locker, she reached inside and found a small metallic disk. She studied the object with deep emotion before tapping it. A hologram flickered to life that showed a little girl playing with a ragged doll. The child was laughing, full of life and joy, the image of a daughter she had never held in her arms, an image so pure and sweet that it broke Faith's heart. Tears welled in her eyes and she smiled wistfully.
She tapped the holo-image and the little girl vanished into thin air. Faith pulled out a pack of cigarettes from another pocket and lit up. She inhaled deeply, smoke wafting around her head. The smoke singed the lining of her throat and after months without a fix, she could feel a cough building in her chest. Nevertheless, a crooked smile curled her lips.
God, she needed that!
Faith finished her cigarette and stepped up to a comm system. She mouthed her first words in months. “Cryo-deck to bridge, can anyone hear me up there?”
Her words were greeted by crackling static.
“Someone must be flying this ship. Hello?”
No answer.
Frustrated, and increasingly disturbed, Faith shook her head. “Great.”
She had no choice but to head for the nearest elevator. Faith stepped into the lift, doors whooshing shut behind her. She selected the upper habitat deck as her destination. The elevator hummed to life and ascended. Faith was unnerved and fought back a sense of growing anxiety. By now, the computers should have alerted the crew that one of their passengers was awake. What the hell was going on?
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. To Faith's surprise, she was greeted by moaning and gasps of pleasure, almost as if someone was having sex outside the elevator. Her curiosity grew.
Gingerly, Faith stepped out of the lift. Guard up, she made her way though the dark, deserted common room. The source of moaning became apparent: holo-porn filled the room, a three-dimensional couple flitting over the couches and armchairs in the common area. There was no audience for the shimmering images of furious copulation. Besides Faith and the energetic holo-couple, there was no sign of a living presence.
Mildly amused, Faith passed through the hologram, the couple dancing over her body to become, ever-so-briefly, a virtual threesome. She studied the room. A table was littered with a few half-empty beer bottles: more evidence of a stag party interrupted. Fifteen men stuck in a hunk of metal for ten long months without female companionship had to find a way to blow off steam somehow.
Further inspection revealed overturned furniture and Faith spotted a few broken bottles scattered across the carpeted floor. A chilling thought occurred to her. Could these be signs of a struggle of some kind? Faith had seen enough violence in her life to recognize its stark signature. Her gaze stopped dead at a nearby couch and she was hit by a rush of anxiety. The couch was stained black. There was no doubt in her mind she was looking at dried blood. It had seeped into the furniture and the carpeted floor. Apprehension choked her.
Faith stumbled toward the nearest exit, fighting back a sense of mounting paranoia. She arrived in a sterile corridor lined with doors. The skeleton-crew’s living quarters. As she headed down the hallway, she couldn’t shake the disquieting sense that someone was tracking her every move. The silence was unnerving. Her muffled footsteps were the only sound in the empty corridor. Overhead lights flickered on and off, creating a surreal, strobing effect.
Faith shot the doors a wary glance before deciding to approach one of them. She hesitated but then gave herself an internal push and tapped a button. The door whoosed open. Faith stepped into sleeping quarters.
Treading lightly, she soaked up the details of the room. It was tiny, cramped, and held three unmade bunk beds. A sink overflowed with toiletries. Faith approached the bunk beds, her eyes alert. A few holograms crackled into existence as the bunk sensors registered her approach. The image of a smiling man holding up a three year old appeared in front of the first bunk while the pin-up of a stunning blonde materialized over the second bunk. Faith wondered whether the image came from a calendar or some lover left a million miles behind on Earth. As she shifted her attention to the third bunk, she was greeted with an aerial view of Hawaii taken from space. Faith allowed herself a smile and she could feel some of the tension leaving her body. She welcomed the various holo-images’ mundane nature, their humanity. It meant someone else was around and she wasn’t alone aboard this godforsaken vessel.
Faith turned and exited the room, stepping back into the corridor. It was lined with many doors. She guessed they must lead to the other sleeping quarters, but she had seen enough. Instead of checking each room individually, she decided to head straight for the bridge. The desolate corridor was making her anxious. A part of her was tempted to just shout, so she could put an end to the oppressive silence.
As she brushed past the doors on her side, her gaze focused on the dark hallway ahead, the door behind her opened without warning and a man lurched out at her. Gurgling blood, he wore a blue mining tech uniform that was now tattooed in red, the handle of a shiver-blade protruding from his chest. Faith cried out and recoiled while a part of her mind, toughened by years of surviving on the unforgiving streets of New Cairo and further honed by a nine-year stint on the lunar penal colony, was galvanized into action. As the man collapsed, hitting the floor with a wet thud, Faith knelt by him, desperately trying to staunch the bleeding. She was soon covered in blood, overwhelmed by the number of gushing wounds. By the time she turned back to the hapless man’s face, his now empty eyes stared into space, dead. Paralyzed for a moment, she just leaned over the corpse. Copper scented the air and made her feel nauseous. A dark, nagging suspicion had just been confirmed in vivid, crimson detail. Something was terribly wrong aboard this ship. It brought another thought. Her being awake might not be a random accident after all.
She stole a glance inside the open sleeping quarters from which the dying man had emerged. Despite her fear, Faith entered the quarters. She was greeted by the pungent stench of human decay. Death lurked within the room. She looked across the chamber and was sickened. Three men were slumped in their bunks, faces bloated and putrefied. Unlike the fellow in the hallway, they had been dead for weeks, if not months. Their maroon uniforms told her that they weren’t miners but part of the ship’s crew.
Faith could feel her heart racing. Her hands came up and covered her nose, protecting her from the worst of the smell. She stifled back the scream building in the back of her throat. Repelled by the grim setting, she was stumbling back when she heard the shuffle of footsteps behind her.
“Freeze!”
Faith turned around slowly, eyes fixed on the man who was holding a pulse gun at her head. He had a hard face made harder by bleary eyes and a three-day growth of brown-gray stubble. There was a definite edge to the guy. She flashed him her most charming smile, knowing the unexpected reaction might throw him off for a split second. Without conscious thought being necessary she snatched the man's wrist, pushing it toward the ceiling as the first laser bullet erupted from the barrel in a rain of sparks.
Faith spun around, both hands now anchored on his forearm and hurled him over her shoulder in one fast, fluid movement. Nine years in prison had taught her a trick or two when it came to personal security. One key lesson had stuck: never hold back in a fight unless you plan on donating blood. The man slammed into the floor. Faith spun around and hovered over the downed stranger with arms up, limbs coiled in a combat stance, body surging with adrenaline.
Reacting with trained instincts of his own, the man's foot swept out and knocked Faith right on her ass. She hit the floor, the impact traveling up her spine. Ignoring the pain (prison lesson number one: never stop moving), she scrambled over the hallway floor to regain her bearings. She pivoted and came face to face with the barrel of a pulse gun, its bore digging into her forehead.
The man glared at
Faith. “Go ahead. Piss me off,” he said. The sober tone in his voice left no doubt. One wrong move and she felt certain that he would pull the trigger.
They regarded each other, eyes lingering as they sized each other up.
“Put your hands up. Now!” he ordered, and Faith complied.
The man grabbed her, spinning her body around, and pushed her up against the wall. As he expertly frisked her, she knew instantly that he had performed body searches before. That suggested he had a security or law enforcement background. Was this man part of ship security? His uniform suggested otherwise. Based on that, he wasn’t part of the crew but just another colony worker headed for the asteroid mines.
For Faith, that raised an interesting question. Did this space traveler just wake up from cryo too? Faith scanned the man’s nametag. It identified him as Harker.
“Listen, I have no idea what's going on here,” Faith said.
“Shut up!”
Harker broke off, having found the metallic holo-disk in one of her pockets. He tapped a button and the image of the little girl popped into existence. The innocent image of the child struck a sharp contrast to the body splayed against the wall.
With the gun leveled at her forehead, Faith fought back the urge to grab the hologram right out of the man’s hands. Reason prevailed and she willed herself to stay calm. The gun was a constant reminder that she wasn't in control here.
Harker crouched next to the corpse, his gun remaining locked on Faith. He gently closed the dead man’s eyes before he turned his iron gaze on her. “Who the fuck are you?”
Faith felt certain that no matter what she told him, Harker wouldn’t believe her.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Massa is a screenwriter, script consultant and book reviewer (http://horrornovelreviews.com/) He has lived in New York, Florida, Europe and now calls Los Angeles his home. William writes horror, thrillers, science fiction and dark fantasy. More books are on the way.
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Thank you for taking a chance on a new writer. I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I did writing it.
COVER ART/CREDITS
Cover Design by Jun Ares & William Massa
Gargoyle back Image by Abrar Ajmal
www.aaillustrations.co.uk
Copyright © istockphoto by Getty Images
Proofing by John Evans [email protected] You’re a rockstar!
Thanks to my early reviewers! Your comments were helpful and pushed the story to the next level.
SILICON MAN
A global pandemic has cut the human population in half. An android workforce fills the void left by the devastation. But some of the AIs have grown tired of being slaves. Some want freedom.
An underground movement of runaways has sprung up and wages a shadow war with a simple objective — equal rights for artificial people.
Enter Commander Cole Marsalis, head of the AI-TAC first response team trained to deal with the rogue robots. Now he has been tasked with the ultimate undercover mission – infiltrate the android underground. But to do so, he will have to become that which he hates the most…
A machine!
"SILICON MAN is an intelligent techno-thriller where the line between man and machine has never been more unclear." Nicholas Sansbury Smith, best-selling author of ORBS
"The story was fascinating, and there's a great blend of science fiction and action." - Darren Wearmouth, best-selling author of FIRST ACTIVATION
"William Massa does a great job at introducing us to a cyberpunk/technothriller setting where AIs no longer want to work for the man. It's fast-paced read that has hints of Blade Runner and Neuromancer..." - Colin F. Barnes, author of the bestselling TECHXORCIST series
Cara was nursing the infant nestled in her arms when the high-pitched whine of ramjets assaulted the air. She looked up with alarm, catching sight of the fast-approaching military AI-TAC hovership, a sleek, mechanical bird of prey, all jagged edges and swiveling gun turrets.
Happiness made way for a somber realization - she wasn’t going to live to see another day. The squirming bundle — her name was Annie — remained blissfully unaware of the approaching danger; her tiny pink fingers brushed against the nursing bottle as her lips drank greedily.
Cara stood aboard the top deck of a huge freighter headed for Japan. Seasickness had driven most of the crew below and the upper deck felt abandoned. The massive vessel fought its way through the choppy sea, a steel behemoth carving a path through the endless expanse of the Pacific, a swirling, ever-shifting landscape of blue. Sunlight shimmered on the water, a scarlet band that stretched over the horizon. But the spectacular beauty of her surroundings was lost on her. Cara’s world had been reduced to a single thought…
They’d been found!
In less than a minute, the craft would be hovering above the freighter and armed troopers would board, weapons blazing. She had to warn the others even as she knew it would be little more than a courtesy, a chance for them to steel themselves for their inevitable fate.
Fighting back a wave of panic, Cara sent an instant message to the other five individuals she was traveling with. They had chosen to remain on the lower decks of the freighter. She knew there was no escape and this realization broke her heart. It wasn’t fair after all they’d been through. They had gotten so far, overcoming so many dangers and obstacles on their treacherous path toward a better future. In her mind, she could almost see the landmass of Japan in the distance. Japan had come to symbolize freedom; a safe haven from her pursuers where they could never harm her or Annie and where they’d be allowed to go on with their lives in peace. But this was wishful thinking. They were still days away from their destination and found themselves in international waters. No law on the planet offered protection from what was about to happen.
Her grim realization led to acceptance. She would face her fate on her own terms. She wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Galvanized into motion, Cara made her way below deck. She passed a few grim-faced crewmen. Most of them looked away when they saw her. They were sympathetic to her plight but realized her escape attempt had come to an end. Self-preservation dictated that they avoid the upcoming confrontation.
Cara rushed down a few flights of stairs and arrived in the vast cargo area that had been her home for the last four days. To most people the living conditions below deck were abysmal, but to Cara these last four days were the best days of her life. Down here, she had felt hope for the first time. Hope for a better life. Hope for a future.
No one could ever take away from her the time she spent with Annie. She realized she had no regrets. She had done her best to improve her lot in life. There had never been a guarantee she’d get away with it, and she was fully aware from the start that the odds were stacked against her. Even though her kind made up twenty percent of the US population, they would always be looked down upon as just machines. As property. Humans had many names for them. Android, mechanical, technohuman, synthetics, AI, mech. But Cara could add one to the list: slave. She was born into digital bondage. Two years earlier she had entered the world fully formed and equipped with memories, a preprogrammed personality and no rights to speak of.
She remembered being assigned to a wealthy family as their personal assistant. Remembered th
e pregnant woman who had eyed her with what turned out to be well-founded suspicion. The look of interest from the husband didn’t escape Cara’s notice, but in a way she was too innocent and naïve to comprehend the complex human dynamic she was about to become ensnared in.
Two weeks later, the husband had his way with her while his wife gave birth in a hospital two miles away.
At first Cara had been indifferent to the sex. Providing pleasure was within the parameters of her programming. Her body was designed to be enticing and she gave herself willingly to her owner. If the wife had been so inclined, Cara would have reciprocated advances from her, too. She was designed to serve. To please.
But as the wife returned, the emotional dynamic changed within the household. Within herself. The cause for these changes were at first mysterious to her. On one level she was a highly complex, evolved digital consciousness, on another, she was as innocent and inexperienced as the helpless infant in her care. But as the weeks passed, innocence gave way to experience and a growing understanding of the situation she found herself in. She was beginning to realize the devastating impact the husband’s advances were having on the integrity of the family unit. She was programmed to strengthen and stabilize her assigned household but her presence was having the exact opposite effect. The affair threatened to tear the family apart. She couldn’t allow this to happen. It was in direct violation of her programming. She had to find a solution to a problem that was growing worse with each passing day.
At first, Cara hoped the wife could put a stop to what was going on. Why didn’t she confront her philandering husband? Why was she turning a blind eye to the man’s indiscretions? Didn’t she care about her daughter? Or was she afraid she would lose her husband if she spoke up? Instead of confronting the situation, she chose to ignore it and sought refuge in the bottle. Five Martini’s got her through the day and as long as Cara prepared the cocktails, she maintained her silence.
Gargoyle Knight: A Dark Urban Fantasy Page 17